Face the Winter Naked

Daniel Tomelin, a battle-worn veteran with PTSD—haunted by the carnage of World War 1—deserts his wife & children in the Great Depression & becomes a hobo seeking work & relief from his nightmares. Readers may feel they're traveling with this simple carpenter in the Ozark hills of Missouri, looking for food & work, but they'll be glad they're not. If you enjoyed THE GRAPES OF WRATH, read this! More

For fans of Steinbeck’s timeless classic, THE GRAPES OF WRATH

Daniel Tomelin, a battle-worn veteran with PTSD—haunted by the carnage of World War 1—deserts his wife and children in the Great Depression and becomes a hobo seeking work and relief from his nightmares.

This page-turning tale of courage is set in a tragic era in which hope was sometimes all they had and parallels today's economic turmoil and unemployment.

… "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us." (Herbert Hoover, accepting the Republican presidential nomination. Palo Alto, California, August 1928) …

It's a wife and mother providing for her children under miserable, heartbreaking circumstances, while her husband tramps around the country playing a banjo, searching for answers to the puzzle of Daniel Tomelin, keeping his hillbilly sense of humor, his humanity, his love of God and nature intact, while deep inside feeling ashamed and unworthy of the family he loves with all his heart.

Like scores of other men who abandoned their families during the Depression, Daniel's wounded pride for being unable to care for his wife and children prevents him from going home. . . .

And if her deserting husband has the guts to show his face again, his wife, LaDaisy—who finds the strength and means to provide for her fatherless children while fending off the advances of a man with the power to leave them homeless—may feel like killing him!

FACE THE WINTER NAKED provides an engrossing read in which Turner interweaves history, geography, and a compelling love story.

More than that, it is a story that looks beyond the surface, delving into the inner workings of the human mind, a powerful narrative that illuminates larger issues of humanity that are timeless and volatile and just as apropos today as decades ago:

- War

- Political strife

- Economic collapse

- Environmental catastrophe

- Division of families

- Cruelty and oppression

- Poverty, inequity, and all the faces of prejudice.

But it is also about love

and faith

and strength

and hope, forgiveness, and perseverance.

Readers may feel they are traveling with this simple carpenter through the Ozark hills of Missouri as he wears out his cardboard "Hoover" insoles searching for his next meal, an odd job that pays only pennies, or shelter from the dust and sweltering heat that summer of 1932.

Bonnie Turner (AKA Aurorawolf) is an Independent Publisher, Author, Proofreader, and Copyeditor. She writes Children&#39;s Fiction and Nonfiction, Young Adult and Adult Historical Fiction, Humor, Satire and Romantic Suspense. She&#39;s a Jazz-Fusion & Classical music fan with a background in parapsychology, metaphysics, and yoga. Born in Independence, Missouri, at the height of the Great Depression, she currently lives in De Pere, Wisconsin.___________________

Videos

FACE THE WINTER NAKED Book Trailer

Daniel Tomelin, a battle-worn veteran haunted by the carnage of the First World War, abandons his family in the Great Depression and goes on the road in search of work and relief from his nightmares ... and returns to find his family has become victims of violence.

Reviews

Review by:
Loretta Giacoletto
on Sep. 21, 2010 :
Bonnie Turner’s Face the Winter Naked captures the heart of the Great Depression with a compassionate account of one family’s struggle to survive poverty, despair, and sorrow. Thumbs up for an entertaining read that made me glad to be living in today’s world instead of the 1930’s.